


The Things He Does for Love

by SassyUnicorn7



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Canon, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Humor, One Shot, Shopping, The L Word - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 01:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassyUnicorn7/pseuds/SassyUnicorn7
Summary: Officially a couple and living with each other, Yang and Mercury go on their first shopping adventure together.Shameless Fluff.





	The Things He Does for Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Golden_Mermaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Mermaid/gifts).



> This is my first collaboration piece as this is a direct result from a role-play I did with my friend, Golden_Mermaid! I was hesitant to role-play, but my friend showed me just how fun it can be! It's also a phenomenal creative writing exercise for anyone, so I would encourage my fellow writers to give it a try! It really keeps you on your toes since you never know what the other person is going to toss at you!
> 
> Since I was the Mercury role-player, this story is mostly from his POV. With that in mind, enjoy "The Things He Does for Love."

"I don't understand why you're so mad at me. I didn't steal _all_ of your shirts,” Yang said as she rested her head against the window of his car. Riding a vehicle that didn’t let her feel the wind in her hair was different for her, but ever since she and Mercury started seeing each other more frequently, almost everything she considered normal was turned on its head. She didn’t mind, though. Different could be exciting, and she definitely liked exciting.

“Nope. You were kind enough to leave me the one I've got on my back," Mercury replied with the snarky attitude he tended to take on anytime he was forced into adulting. He'd only ever shopped for clothes two times before. Once was to acquire disguises for the infiltration of Beacon, and the other was because he needed shirts without blood on them.

"Hey, are you seriously mad at me? Just be happy that now we can go on a… sort of shopping date thing. I'll even buy you some shirts that aren't black.” Yang offered a sly grin and kissed his cheek. "I know you. You can't stay mad at me forever.”

Mercury chewed the inside of his mouth to keep himself from smiling. Try as he might, he couldn't deny his beautiful blond girlfriend had a point. "A few of them can be other colors," he said, his uncontrollable smirk winning out over his desire to stay sulky. It was amazing the kind of power Yang's kisses had over him.

"Really? So you're willing to wear something yellow?" Yang asked. She laughed before he could answer, envisioning her prince of darkness in shades of the sunniest color of them all. "We can even buy those cute matching shirts that says _‘I'm hers’_ and _'She's mine’._ How does that sound?”

Yang smiled a bit too wide, feeling more excited than before. She couldn't help messing with him. It was never a dull day spending time with Mercury, contrary to his favorite color scheme.

Mercury was grimacing as much as Yang was smiling. He shifted his grip on the steering wheel when the image of the pair of them in cheesy couple shirts painted itself rather vividly in his mind.

"You sure you don't wanna just blow all our money at the arcade? I'll even give you my tickets,” he bargained.

"Can we do both?” Yang asked, batting her eyelashes in a way that was only annoying because of how cute it was. ”I was kidding about the matching shirts…” she lied.

Mercury sighed. He knew she was getting her way. He was already pulling into the mall's parking lot. What was the point of arguing?

The stone-faced quick-kicker pulled into a vacant spot and cut the engine with a jerk of his wrist before turning to face Yang so that he was almost close enough to kiss.

"You owe me," was all he said before taking advantage of their proximity and stealing a swift taste of her lips. He pulled away the same time he unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out of his hand-me-down car.

Yang blinked a few times before regaining proper consciousness and cursing Mercury’s name. He could be so unfair when it came to kisses. She liked their intimacy to be much longer, but since they were in public, she chose to restrain herself and play nice.

Yang caught up to Mercury in a few swift shuffles, arching her brow in his direction once she was beside him. ”So, shopping first… or the arcade? I don't want you groaning as if I'm an awful girlfriend.”

Mercury shrugged, a bit indifferent. "Might as well get the shitty stuff out of the way first.”

"Shopping's fun! We shop for food and you love food,” Yang pointed out. “My cooking hasn't poisoned you yet so....let's go.” She bit her tongue, realizing she should’ve stopped while she was ahead. Her point was almost made null and void—almost as null and void as the flavor of many a dish she’d nearly killed her boyfriend with. By accident, of course.

Before he had time to call her on it, Yang grabbed Mercury’s hand and ran into the first store she saw. Luckily, it had a comic book section near the front. She waited with baited breath as she gauged his reaction.

Mercury's brow raised, his interest obviously piqued. "And once again, Blondie, you do something I would never expect and take me by complete surprise,” he said before reaching for the first colorful cover that caught his eye. “Kinda reminds me of that time you detached your arm to run away from me.”

"Getting the relic was more important than beating your ass at the time,” Yang said evenly. “Today, I'm going to try and show you that shopping isn't too bad. Now stay here and I'll find you some clothes.” She turned to leave before just as quickly pivoting on her heel and facing him again. “Are you a large or a medium? Shirts tend to shrink in the dryer.”

“You ought to know my size by now,” Mercury said with a smirk and chuckle at his own innuendo.

Yang rolled her eyes. ”You're average. I guess you're a medium" She laughed at the look her reply put on his face and tried to alter it again with peck on the cheek. One thing she never got tired of was how expressive Mercury could be. For a former heartless killer, Mercury was remarkably animated. “Answer your scroll when I call. Don’t want you to get lost,” she said before heading towards the men’s clothing section.

Mercury watched her go with a glare, the kiss having little to no affect on him this time. She’d most definitely struck a nerve. “Average my left foot... which I don't even have," he muttered as he flipped the page of his comic with a dramatic flick of his finger. Still, he _was_ a medium when it came to shirts. He liked the fabric to hug his body a little, plus he knew Yang liked it, too. Once again, it was pointless to argue with her.

After selecting a fair amount of black, gray, and silver shirts all varying in design, Yang came to a halt. Her eyes glistened with glee at the sight of her find, her imagination running wild with thoughts of Mercury and herself donning the wondrous outfits. She almost cried when she realized they were the perfect sizes and threw them into her shopping cart, making sure to tuck them under the layers of other garments and hide them from a certain someone’s gunmetal-gray eyes.

"Hey!" a deep, angry voice called out. The voice belonged to a man with a head as round as his bulbous belly. He had tiny prickles of hair dusting the center of his first chin and the crumbs of that morning’s donuts dusting the center of his second. “I need those two outfits you just grabbed. I saw them first!” he bellowed.

Yang’s confusion shifted to pure annoyance, certain it read loud and clear across her face. “As if pal! Why do you think they're in my cart?! Find another one.”

She began to walk off, but the man didn’t seem to think their business was finished. He reached out and clutched onto her human arm with his sausage-like fingers. Before Yang could even react, a second voice made itself heard.

“Excuse me sir.”

Yang knew who it was without even looking. It was the kind of tone that didn’t need to be loud to be intimidating. The kind of tone Mercury spoke in before he was about to kick someone’s ass.

Sure enough, Mercury was standing with his hand on the shoulder of the man with his hand on Yang. He seemed as smug as ever, though Yang knew the dangerous glint in his eyes meant Mercury was a few wrong moves away from inflicting some serious damage.

The man released Yang and just as quickly shrugged Mercury off. He attempted to shove him with the same hand he’d grabbed onto Yang with, but the smooth quick-kicker easily evaded it.

“Asshole!” the infuriated man grumbled. “Stay out of this!”

Mercury feigned a contemplative look, as if he were actually considering the option. “I might if the lady you so rudely addressed wasn’t my girlfriend.”

“Oh, yeah? Well your _girlfriend_ took the—”

Yang muffled the man’s last words by chucking one of the many shirts in her cart at his face. The bulbous man yanked the fabric away, much too enraged to use his words anymore. He was ready to move on to fists and Mercury was happy to oblige.

Mercury caught the discarded shirt before it hit the ground and used it to catch the man’s outstretched arm in his attempt to punch Yang. Mercury twisted the shirt to make his hold on the man’s wrist even tighter and pulled him in a downward motion, sending the man stumbling forward right into one of Mercury’s kicks. The trained assassin twisted the shirt again, this time twisting the man’s arm along with it while he spun in front of him to fiercely elbow the man in his big, round nose. In a finishing move, Mercury twisted the shirt in the opposite direction, releasing the man’s arm before just as quickly ensnaring his thick neck. Mercury yanked the man down again, kneeing him in the jaw before finally releasing him.

“Harold!” a shrill voice screeched. Enter a paper thin woman with cheekbones so sharp they could’ve been her Huntress weapon. “What the hell are you doing? Are you embarrassing me _again?!”_

Without further questioning (or answering) the slender woman pinched the giant man’s flabby earlobe and pulled him out of the store. The poor man whimpered the entire way.

“Just goes to show size isn’t everything,” Mercury said as they, along with a handful of nosey customers, watched the very thin woman tow the very large man through the aisles of clothes.

Yang shook her head. “You’re still a medium,” she told him. “But mediums are _just right_ for me,” she added with a wink that Mercury couldn’t help but smirk at.

They managed to make it to the checkout counter without further incident.

“You were right,” Mercury said to Yang as he watched the cashier scan the first item. “Shopping can be kinda fun.” He thought about how priceless the man’s face had been before something bright and colorful near the bottom of the cart caught his eye. “What’s that?” he asked.

Yang’s eyes widened just as abruptly as her spine stiffened. “Nothing! Just new sweatpants” she claimed, shuffling the clothes in the cart to better hide her secret. She then spun to face Mercury with her hands behind her back and a coy smile forming across her lips. “Can you do me a favor and buy both of us some coffee?” she asked. She even handed him some Lien to pay for it.

Mercury narrowed his eyes. As suspicious as he was, Mercury was never one to turn down coffee, especially if she was buying.

“You want that pumpkin spice crap if they have it?” he asked.

Yang nodded and smiled. “Wow. You actually remembered one of my favorite drinks. I’m proud.”

She waited until he was out of sight before rummaging through the cart and handing the cashier the coveted outfits Mercury had so valiantly (yet so unknowingly) fought for so she could stuff them in bags and properly conceal them. This was one surprise Mercury was getting whether he wanted it or not.

**~*~*~*~Five Minutes Later~*~*~*~**

"One grande pumpkin spice latte, with extra basic bitch sprinkled on top," Mercury announced as he held out Yang’s coffee—if the overly sweet concoction even qualified as coffee.

He took a sip from his own steaming cup. Everyone at StarLien always eyed him funny when he ordered a regular, tall coffee, but he didn't care. It was black like his soul _and_ , more importantly, like the majority of clothes he was happy to see peeking out of Yang's shopping bags.

"So... does this mean we're finished?" he asked, albeit a bit timidly for fear of the answer being no.

“You wanted to go to the arcade,” Yang reminded him, mostly because she wanted to go, too. “I can’t pass up a chance to beat your ass.” She walked towards him and added in a seductive whisper, “And if you do good enough, I’ll give you a surprise when we get home.”

Wild thoughts as to what said surprise could be danced around Mercury's head and caused an impish smirk to slant up his face. His mind was completely in the gutter, but he decided against voicing such dirty thoughts. Not yet, anyway.

He swooped with one hand and liberated Yang of all her shopping bags, carrying them over his shoulder as if they weighed nothing more than a light backpack. After a quick trek to the car and back, they were standing at the entrance to Aracadia, the biggest arcade in the entire kingdom.

"Let's start with air hockey," Mercury suggested, moving with a little more pep in his step upon entering the glorious gaming facility. 

The main lights were black lights and made the white on Yang's shirt (which was technically Mercury's shirt) stand out in bright purple contrast to the rest of her shadowy silhouette. It also made both of their normally pale skin seem incredibly tan.

"Maybe we can visit Menagerie sometime this summer. You look hot with a tan," he noted as he put money into the air hockey machine.

“Psh, you don’t care what color my skin is, just so long as you’re under it. In every sense of the phrase,” Yang said, placing the puck on the table and knocking it into Mercury’s goal with one swift strike.

_One nill._

“Guilty as charged,” Mercury admitted.

He retrieved the puck from the compartment it traveled to and tossing it on the table. He was casual about it, but the way he struck the small, plastic disc sent it zipping across the table in a perfect zigzag that landed it smack dab in the middling of Yang’s goal.

_One all._

Yang grabbed the puck and flipped it like a coin until it landed back on the table. “I don’t tan anyway. I just get really red,” she said. “Anyway, if you can beat me at this, I’ll get you a nice prize. Maybe a doll? Or a puppet?”

Their back-and-forth lasted a little longer this time, but not too much before Mercury scored another point.

_One to two._

With a little more sass, Yang retrieved the puck and initiated the next round. Mercury liked it when she got feistier.

“Firstly,” Mercury said, “I think red’s a good color on you.” He thought of how thrilling it was when he _really_ pissed her off and her eyes turned bright scarlet, be it in a fistfight or otherwise. A spicy Yang was even better than a feisty Yang. “And secondly,” he continued, “I want an elephant. A big one.”

“I think I’ll get you a stuffed cow,” Yang said, before sending a straight shot towards Mercury’s goal.

He blocked it, but just barely.

“So you’ll get me a plushy of Cinder? How sweet of you,” he said, his eyes following the puck as it zigzagged back.

Yang burst out laughing, nearly blowing her concentration. “Hahaha! I freaking love—uh…”

She caught herself and averted her eyes from Mercury to the scoreboard. How did Mercury have one more point than her? That needed to change.

Yang lowered herself to the table, hovering so close she could feel the tiny air jets tickling her skin. “I freaking love kicking your ass,” she said, backhanding the puck this time, and sending it on an unfamiliar course.

Mercury could’ve sworn he had his hand in position to block, but he also could’ve sworn Yang was about to tell him she loved him. His mind was in too many places at once, and the game wasn’t the most pertinent of those places. Yang tied the score.

_Two all._

Mercury slipped the puck back on the table and let if float in front of him for a moment. He sent it flying with a might strike, but Yang seemed much more concentrated now. They went back and forth for several passes before Yang finally managed to score another goal on him. And another. And another.

Yang needed to almost say the L word more often. It totally warped Mercury’s mind and made beating him a piece of cake.

After basketball, racing, and enough shooter games to make both of their trigger fingers tremble with exhaustion, Mercury and Yang happily approached the prize counter with their arms full of tickets.

Mercury's eyes scanned the top shelf and stopped on a life size version of Dumbo staring down at them from his perch.

"Well whaddaya know," Mercury said, tapping Yang's shoulder with the back of his hand and pointing at the baby elephant with enormous ears. "Must be my lucky day!"

Mercury could tell Yang was trying hard not to smile. Anytime he got too smug, she usually did her best not to encourage it. But even she couldn’t deny how funny the serendipitous moment was.

She handed the clerk her tickets and waited with eager anticipation, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, as the machine gobbled them up.

The woman's eyes nearly bugged out of her skull upon reading the total number. "27,000!" she exclaimed.

Mercury frowned. “Is that all?” he asked in disappointment. “I could’ve sworn we had at least 30,000… I shouldn’t have let you beat me at the racing game, Blondie…”

“Mercury, that’s enough for the elephant and then some,” Yang deadpanned. “Look! You can even bring Cinder home!” Yang pointed at the square shaped cow and smiled back at her boyfriend.

Her smile was contagious, though he only caught a smirk of it. “We’ll take the cow, the Dumbo, and then give us Chinese finger traps with whatever we have left,” Mercury instructed.

The woman raised her eyebrow. “The finger traps only cost five tickets… and you’ll have 2,500 left over…”

“And?” Mercury asked.

The woman shrugged in surrender, taking on a textbook the-customer-is-always-right demeanor. “You got it. 500 finger traps coming up!”

**~*~*~*30 Minutes Later*~*~*~**

Upon arriving home, Yang mysteriously dashed to the bedroom and slammed the door shut. Mercury didn’t even bother trying to open it. He instead grabbed one of his new comics from its shopping bag and found a comfortable spot on the couch before he absorbed himself in the colorful pictures. He knew Yang was up to something, but trying to figure out what was pointless. He’d deal with it when he had to, if he had to.

“Babe! Can you come help me with something?” Yang called not even ten minutes later.

Mercury sighed before dropping his comic book to the coffee table and meandering over to the bedroom. The door was cracked now, but not enough to tell what he was about to walk into. He braced himself for some sort of scare. Mercury wasn’t easy to frighten, but that never stopped his eccentric girlfriend from trying.

Once Mercury opened the door, Yang pounced on him, nuzzling her face to his.

“Happy early birthday!” she shouted, her hold on him strengthening.

Mercury wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been expecting, but Yang clad in a rainbow dragon onesie was probably the furthest thing from his mind.

He was too dumbfounded to respond at first, taking on the physicality of a plank of wood as Yang clung around his neck. When his mind finally came to grips with the situation at hand, he let a small smirk slide up his face.

“You know, if you were a _real_ girlfriend, you would’ve gotten me one, too,” he said, voice rich with sarcasm.

“I did!” Yang announced with pride.

Knowing that he would dash out the front door, she clobbered him with a punch to the face, effectively knocking him out cold before dressing him in their matching rainbow dragon onesies.

When he awoke, Mercury winced from the throbbing pain consuming the left side of his face.

"Uggghhhhh, what happened...?" He asked, his jaw slack and his eyes still tired from sleep. "I feel like I got hit by a truck."

That's when he looked down at himself and noticed a wide array of bright, obnoxious colors covering everything below his chin.

"Ahhhh!!! What the hell happened to me?!?" he screamed, scooting to a sitting position, and watching with a horrified expression as the colors moved with him. He was _clothed_ in them.

“BLONDIE!"

Observing Mercury from the opposite end of the couch, Yang smirked like her boyfriend taught her how. His reaction was better than she imagined. She moved to her hands and knees and crawled toward him to put on his hood.

“Look! We match!” she said cheerfully. “This is what we fought that asshole for at the mall.”

Mercury knew he didn’t look happy, but his attitude didn't do anything to deter Yang's. She was as bright as a sunny day, her golden locks framing her face and spilling out from the rainbow dragon's snout that was her onesie's hood. She was beaming from ear to ear.

Even without the onesie, she was absolutely adorable.

Mercury sighed like he had the weight of a real dragon on his shoulders. "Fine. I'll wear it. But only around the apartment! And no pictures!”

“I kinda already took some while you were knocked out, but don’t worry! I’ll just make one of them my scroll screen, and that’ll be it!” She hugged one of his arms. “If you take one cute picture with me, you’ll get another surprise,” Yang goaded, giving him a coy smile.

Mercury narrowed his eyes at her. “What could possibly be more surprising than _this?!”_ he demanded.

Ignoring the question, Yang took out her scroll and cuddled up beside him, resting her head on his shoulder and making a peace sign with her fingers. “Say nuggets!” she said, watching in the selfie screen for Mercury to change his miserable expression.

Mercury rolled his eyes. As much as he loved them, even nuggets couldn't make this chore any easier.

"Nuggets," Mercury said as monotonously as possible, flipping off the camera with the hand that was in view of it.

Yang’s smile flipped into a frown. “Can’t we ever take just one semi-cute photo together?” she asked.

Mercury averted her guilt-tripping eyes. “I don’t really _do_ cute…” he said.

“You look cute right now…” Yang said, her voice coated with just enough sensuality to make it more playful. She clawed herself closer and kissed his cute face, her hood sliding off in the process.

The kiss was enough to make Mercury remember a reward for doing something like this might actually outweigh the humiliation of it.

Despite not feeling the least bit sexy with a multicolored dragon mouth devouring his head, Mercury cupped Yang’s jaw and tilted her face to his, pressing his lips to hers with all the force he wanted to use to rip through the seams of his stupid onesie. He parted her mouth with his tongue and deepened the kiss, moving to a more dominant position on top of her.

"You're one dragon I'm willing to deal with," Mercury murmured against her lips, kissing her briefly before adding with a certain smugness, "Is this my second surprise?"

He caught her mouth with his again before releasing her long enough to voice her answer.

“The surprise is that there’s no surprise. I just wanted photo evidence of how cute you look,” Yang confessed before nipping at neck.

"You look way better in this thing than I do, I guarantee it," Mercury said, his voice low and husky. He was done talking.

He quickly found her lips with his own again and ensnared her in his arms, hugging her close to him. His fingers desperately wanted to seek her out, but were confined by the fluffy claws of the fucking onesie.

"Grrgh! I can't take this anymore!" he half growled, half yelled, taking one hand to the opposite arm of the onesie and yanking as hard as he could. The sleeve detached as easily as Yang's robotic arm.

Mercury paused with the ripped sleeve in his hand--stunned by his own actions. His gunmetal gray eyes were the only parts of him not frozen stiff. They blinked a few times, partially in hopes of making the angry look on Yang's face go away.

Mercury wished Yang had punched him, yelled at him, or done anything other than wordlessly retreat to their room. At least that way he wouldn't be in such an awful state of anticipation for how she would eventually retaliate. A silent Yang was a scary Yang.

With rainbow dragon sleeve still in hand, Mercury took a deep breath and gingerly approached the bedroom door.

He leaned on the doorframe, watching Yang walk from the bag of clothes on the bed to the open closet. She was already out of her onesie, though that just left her in her underwear. Yang didn't _seem_ that upset, but the fact that she was downright unreadable worried him even more.

After a moment longer, he gently rapped his knuckles against the smooth wood of the doorframe.

_Knock, knock._

Yang didn’t stop with her busywork, but she did answer. “You can come in, Merc. This is your room, too, you know.” Her voice was monotonous and her eyes refused to look at him.

Mercury gingerly crossed into the room, well aware of the eggshells strewn about.

"I... uh... sorry I kinda ruined the moment," Mercury said with a sheepish shrug. It was funny. He'd humiliated her in front of hundreds of thousands of people back when they first met, but for some reason he felt more guilty about the dragon onesie than the Vytal Festival.

“It’s fine, Mercury. It’s just a onesie,” Yang said, but the way she spoke wasn’t convincing anyone. “Mind if I borrow one of your shirts?” she asked.

“One of my new ones?” Mercury tried to verify, but his impatient girlfriend was already throwing a brand new shirt over her head, tag still attached. She offered him a smile once her head was through the collar, but he could tell how fake it was.

“Just forget it, alright?” she pleaded.

Mercury regarded Yang with a look far stronger than apologetic. It was determined, for Mercury was determined to make it right.

No matter how nonchalantly she played it off, Yang couldn't hide it when she was sad. Apart from her eyes turning a few shades bluer, she lost the fiery spark that made her shine so bright—the same spark that ignited Mercury's heart and led him out of the darkness he never dreamed he'd escape.

Before Yang could turn back around and put away more clothes, Mercury was across the room wrapping his arms around her and kissing her with all the love his mouth would never speak of.

Yang blinked a couple of times before reciprocating the kiss with twice as much passion. She knew they sucked at communicating with words more than half the time, but through their actions and intimacy, it all made sense.

“Don’t feel bad… I know you feel guilty, but don’t,” Yang said in between kisses and sighs.

Mercury hated the fact Yang could read him just as easily as he could read her. It made him feel a certain sort of vulnerable since he still wasn't used to things like compassion and caring.

"I'll make it up to you," Mercury assured her, lifting her up by her thighs and carrying her over to the bed.

**~*~*~*One Week Later*~*~*~**

Mercury waited impatiently by the front door of his broke-down, little apartment, glancing at the clock on his scroll every thirty seconds. Yang was going to be home any minute, and he wanted the package to arrive before she did. It was _supposed_ to arrive before she did.

"Should've paid extra for expedited shipping," Mercury grumbled to himself after checking his scroll for the umpteenth time.

Not even seventeen seconds later, there was a knock at the door.

Mercury yanked the doorknob so hard he nearly tore it from it's sloppily painted wood.

"Gyahhhhaa!" the delivery man screamed, stumbling backwards from Mercury's surprising speed. Much to his credit, though, he managed not to drop the box in his hands.

"Sp-special delivery for Roch? Mike Roch?” the man stuttered.

Mercury smirked, partly because it sounded like the delivery man said he had a special delivery for his crotch, and also because he forgot he used a pseudo name to buy the stupid thing in the first place. _No one_ was going to know that Mercury Black owned a rainbow dragon onesie.

Well... No one except Yang.

“Mercury! Stop scaring the poor guy!” Yang’s voice cried.

Crap. She was home early. After helping the startled man to his feet, Yang took the box from his hands and read the recipient’s name aloud. “Mike Roch? Who’s that? Are you stealing someone else’s mail?” she asked.

"Em's the thief. I'm the assassin," Mercury reminded her, relieving her of the box.

Those words were all the delivery man needed to hightail it out of there faster than he could stutter, "D-d-did he just say ASSASSIN?!?!” He didn’t even bother having them sign for it.

"Why are you home so early?" Mercury asked, hoping to change the subject long enough to make Yang forget about the package he casually hid behind his back.

“The job was easier than expected,” Yang said. “Why? Didn’t you miss my face?”

"I always miss your face," Mercury told her. "And your boobs, and your legs, and your killer ass—"

He cut himself off so he could sidestep the playful punch Yang aimed at his shoulder.

"And this," Mercury added, gesturing to the box, "is...ah...parts for my prosthetics. I treated myself to some new hydrologic enhancements.”

Yang folded her arms, her eyes glancing from Mercury’s charming face to the brown package between his palms. “Strange… but alright. I’ll leave you alone with your precious _hydrologic enhancements,”_ she said with a wink before heading towards the kitchen to make them some dinner.

"Whew. That was close," Mercury whispered to himself.

Relieved to avoid anymore suspicion, Mercury took his box to the bedroom and shut the door.

A few moments later, he emerged wearing a new and improved version of the rainbow dragon onesie. It was improved because he'd had the producers custom make a suit with the words "Property of Yang Xiao Long" sewed onto the left butt cheek.

"What's cookin', good-lookin'," Mercury asked from his cocky stance against the kitchen doorframe. He had one foot crossed over the other, one hand on his hip, and the opposite arm pressed to the frame in what he hoped was the sexiest way a rainbow dragon could stand.

"I'm making us some—” Yang dropped the entire pot of beef stew when she saw what he was wearing. Her hands covered her mouth and unexpected tears streamed down her face. “Y-You're....You..." Words failed her, so she hugged him instead, using actions as they often did.

"Told you I'd make it up to you," Mercury said.

In all honesty, the onesie was growing on him. Apart from getting such an emotionally raw reaction from Yang for the first time in the history of their relationship, Mercury literally felt like her safety blanket while swathed in the bright and colorful tufts of fluff.

"I can't believe you're getting so worked up over a dragon onesie," Mercury said with a laugh while holding her closer with his big, fluffy claws.

"It's not because of the onesie...it's because this is probably the sweetest thing you've ever done. I love you, Mercury." 

Those words slipped out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying. Although she meant it, she didn't think it would take a dragon onesie to make her confess her love for him so soon.

Mercury felt his eyes go wide. No one had ever told him that. He honestly didn't take much stock in the word love since it could be used to describe how someone felt about a person just as easily as it could be used to describe how someone felt about a sandwich. People uttered it so frequently that it lost its meaning.

But not Mercury. Mercury never said it, and he damn sure never had anyone say it to him. The fact that Yang had been the one to say it—the fact that she was the same person who had a strong enough influence on him to make him special order a dragon onesie, to share every piece of his wardrobe with to the point that she'd spend an entire paycheck just to buy him more—that warmed him in a way clothes never could.

He scooped her up in his arms. “I—" he choked. As much as he wanted to say it, the words somehow couldn't form. Whether it was psychological trauma or what, he wasn't sure. He instead pressed his lips to hers with every ounce of his intentions and hoped Yang could understand the message.

The connection Mercury shared with Yang felt so much deeper than his idea of love to begin with, so he was almost pleased that his inept tongue had prevented him from saying such useless terminology. He might never have the right words to convey how he felt about her, but just knowing that he'd never need to because she understood him completely spoke volumes more than a four-letter word.

"C'mon," he said, proving he was capable of speech after all. "Let's go put your onesie on and watch a movie. I'll even let you pick... so long as it's Dumbo."

They scampered off like a pair of mischievous toddlers and for a brief moment in both of their broken lives, everything was perfect. All because two became onesie.

~Fin

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to Golden_Mermaid for helping me create such cuteness! Also special thanks to Duncles for being my beta reader and catching a very important error! I should use beta readers more often...
> 
> I wish I had finished it in time for GnG week, but when you ship as hard as we do, EVERY week is GnG week ;)


End file.
